


Conflicted Command

by wackyjacqs



Series: Bizarre Holidays [179]
Category: Stargate SG-1
Genre: Episode: s04e09 Scorched Earth, F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-07-01
Updated: 2019-07-01
Packaged: 2020-05-31 18:11:25
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 382
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19431385
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/wackyjacqs/pseuds/wackyjacqs
Summary: He tries to catch her eye once, twice, three times but she’s resolutely refusing to meet his gaze. He doesn’t blame her – he knows she is angry and upset at the situation and at him.





	Conflicted Command

**Author's Note:**

> Written for ‘Canoe Day’ (26 June). Missing scene for Scorched Earth, just before Sam and Jack have their little “standoff” over the Naquadah reactor. 
> 
> Also, I know they weren’t exactly in a canoe, but I’m using a little poetic license...

He tries to catch her eye once, twice, three times but she’s resolutely refusing to meet his gaze. He doesn’t blame her – he knows she is angry and upset at the situation and at him.

But he wants to tell her that he’s sorry. He’s sorry for placing her right into the center of this mess and for making her deliberately override the generator’s function. He wants to tell her that he would never, ever force her to do something she doesn’t want to do, but on this occasion, he has to make her do exactly that, because it’s the best option they have.

_For the greater good,_ he keeps reminding himself.

The mantra is easier to deal with than the memory of how Carter looked at him when he ordered her to make the bomb. Her disapproval, her disappointment, plainly clear to see and it’s another painful reminder that he is not a good man.

But he wants to be, and it’s why he desperately wants Sam to look at him – a flicker of a glance, that’s all he needs – to try and convince her that he isn’t a monster. Yet the words catch in his throat because deep down he isn’t sure he even believes himself. Just weeks ago, he’d coldly ordered the iris closed on Alar, and whilst he knows it was the right thing to do – as harsh as the thought might seem to the rest of his team – what actually fills him guilt is the way Carter stared at him in horror as the gate shut down. He never, ever saw that look in her eye before and he swears that he never, ever wants to see it again.

Unfortunately, his decision to help the Enkarans has done just that, but he is not going to apologize for his command decision as he knows it’s the right thing to do.

But he is sorry for what his decision is doing to the unsteady balance of his already delicate relationship with Carter given what they’ve been through recently, and he isn’t quite sure this is something they’ll be able to get over.

And the thought of Sam not being able to look at him again, let alone forgive him or understand his decision, is what kills him inside.


End file.
